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Never-Fail Blake by Arthur Stringer
page 33 of 193 (17%)
did. But he could not decide just where the trouble lay. And in his
uncertainty he made it a point to entrench himself by means of
"politics." It became an open secret that he had a pull, that his
position was impregnable. This in turn tended to coarsen his methods.
It lifted him beyond the domain of competitive effort. It touched his
carelessness with arrogance. It also tinged his arrogance with
occasional cruelty.

He redoubled his efforts to sustain the myth which had grown up about
him, the myth of his vast cleverness and personal courage. He showed a
tendency for the more turbulent centers. He went among murderers
without a gun. He dropped into dives, protected by nothing more than
the tradition of his office. He pushed his way in through thugs,
picked out his man, and told him to come to Headquarters in an hour's
time--and the man usually came. His appetite for the spectacular
increased. He preferred to head his own gambling raids, ax in hand.
But more even than his authority he liked to parade his knowledge. He
liked to be able to say: "This is Sheeny Chi's coup!" or, "That's a job
that only Soup-Can Charlie could do!" When a police surgeon hit on the
idea of etherizing an obdurate "dummy chucker," to determine if the
prisoner could talk or not, Blake appropriated the suggestion as his
own. And when the "press boys" trooped in for their daily gist of
news, he asked them, as usual, not to couple his name with the
incident; and they, as usual, made him the hero of the occasion.

For Never-Fail Blake had made it a point to be good to the press boys.
He acquired an ability to "jolly" them without too obvious loss of
dignity. He took them into his confidences, apparently, and made his
disclosures personal matters, individual favors. He kept careful note
of their names, their characteristics, their interests. He cultivated
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